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[PATCH 1/2] notes: clean up confusing NULL checks in init_notes()

From
Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date
Apr 22, 2023, 13:55 UTC
Message-ID
<20230422135543.GA3942829@coredump.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To
<20230422135455.GA3942740@coredump.intra.peff.net>

Coverity complains that we check whether "notes_ref" is NULL, but it was already implied to be non-NULL earlier in the function. And this is true; since b9342b3fd63 (refs: add array of ref namespaces, 2022-08-05), we call xstrdup(notes_ref) unconditionally, which would segfault if it was NULL.

But that commit is actually doing the right thing. Even if NULL is
passed into the function, we'll use default_notes_ref() as a fallback,
which will never return NULL (it tries a few options, but its last
resort is a string literal). Ironically, the "!notes_ref" check was
added by the same commit that added the fallback: 709f79b0894 (Notes
API: init_notes(): Initialize the notes tree from the given notes ref,
2010-02-13). So this check never did anything.
Signed-off-by: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
---
 notes.c | 4 ++--
 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
diff --git a/notes.c b/notes.c
index 45fb7f22d1..cadb435056 100644
--- a/notes.c
+++ b/notes.c
@@ -1019,13 +1019,13 @@ void init_notes(struct notes_tree *t, const char *notes_ref,
 	t->root = (struct int_node *) xcalloc(1, sizeof(struct int_node));
 	t->first_non_note = NULL;
 	t->prev_non_note = NULL;
-	t->ref = xstrdup_or_null(notes_ref);
+	t->ref = xstrdup(notes_ref);
 	t->update_ref = (flags & NOTES_INIT_WRITABLE) ? t->ref : NULL;
 	t->combine_notes = combine_notes;
 	t->initialized = 1;
 	t->dirty = 0;
 
-	if (flags & NOTES_INIT_EMPTY || !notes_ref ||
+	if (flags & NOTES_INIT_EMPTY ||
 	    repo_get_oid_treeish(the_repository, notes_ref, &object_oid))
 		return;
 	if (flags & NOTES_INIT_WRITABLE && read_ref(notes_ref, &object_oid))
-- 
2.40.0.653.g15ca972062
Previous: Jeff KingNext: Junio C Hamano
Message 2 of 5 in “coverity null-check fixes”
  1. 0/2 coverity null-check fixesJeff King, Apr 22, 2023
  2. 1/2 notes: clean up confusing NULL checks in init_notes()Jeff King, Apr 22, 2023
  3. Junio C HamanoApr 24, 2023
  4. Jeff KingApr 24, 2023
  5. 2/2 fetch_bundle_uri(): drop pointless NULL checkJeff King, Apr 22, 2023

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